TDG: SoBe Food and Wine Fest

[Fat Guy]

Plax on the SoBe Food and Wine Fest

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[Rachel Perlow]

Bobby Flay "went so far as to suggest buying a second coffee grinder to grind your own." Went so far? Plax, is this a surprise to you? It is a very common practice nowadays, I thought.

[Bond Girl]

Okay, here is the gossip column take on the SoBe festival. I flew into Miami on friday morning for the three day festival, looking forward to a weekend of excessive eating and drinking. An interesting note is that I was on the same flight as Dana Cowin. I remember last year when Drew Nieporent was raving about the first class flights and hotels, so it seemed kind of strange to see Dana Cowin in the economy cattle class with the rest of us.

The friday night bubble Q party was hosted by Moet and Chandon and Norman Van Aken. The program loosely described the party as a big barbecue on the beach with lots of champagne. Norman greeted all the guests at the lawn of the Delano Hotel with grill shrimp and Chorizo sausage on a skewer and a conch ceviche. The conch ceviche was sharp and refreshing against the sweltering heat, but it was difficult to eat since it was served in a shot glass. After much struggle, Norman told me to "Throw it down like a shot." Did anybody ever tell him that that's not exactly the easiest thing to do when you are in an evening dress, trying to make a pretense of civility?

Out on the beach, the smell of barbecue wafted through the air, and there were Moet stations with fluted glasses and mini champagne bottles everywhere. Notable were the succulent barbecue sea bass from Claude Troisgros, which was a departure from the heavy red meat barbeque, offered by everyone else. The sea bass was smothered in a sweet tangy sauce. It was very tasty but lacks complexity, so I was bored with it after a while. More interesting was barbecue lamb from Dan Fearling of Mansion from turtle Creek, which paired lamb with a lime couscous and rice salsa that is slightly spicy with a hint of green herbs. Douglas Rodriguez roasted two pigs but by that time I had way too much food to consume anything else.

The party was like a celebrity chef circuit. I was immediately accosted by Eric, the Sou Chef at Le Bernadine, who introduced me to Marcus Samuelssen, Douglas Rodriguez, Michael Lamonaco, Ming Tsai and Claude Troisgros. Bobby Flay came with his actress girlfriend, Stephanie March (Law and Order). I smoked a cigar with Eric Ripert, who wanted to go enjoy the ocean. Instead, I went off to the after party with Laurent Gras and his wife, where there was more booze, this time from the vodka companies. I watched young chefs like Aaron Sanchez exchanged phone numbers with beautiful model looking women. This is about the only party where tall attractive male models felt inferior to average looking chefs. one guy even apologetically said to me: "We are models, but we are very nice people." The little Bernadine Sou Chef told me his room number at the Loews and asked if we could “hook up” for the night, adding that he pays his girls very well. I told him that I don’t play with minor leaguers and that he couldn’t even begin to afford it.

Despite all, it was a beautiful evening, and beach parties are always fun. “This beats Friday night dinner service,” Mrs. Gras said to me as I head out to get taxi. And, it certainly does.

Edited March 5, 2003 by Bond Girl (log)

[Bond Girl]

The Saturday events consisted of a not so interesting wine event for the trade, and demonstrations similar to the ones described by Plax on Sunday. Alice Waters was very sweet, but it's just boring listening to her go on about market vegetables. and, she said the exact same things on both Saturday and Sunday. For those interested, here are some pictures.

The saturday night sub-zero dinner was by far the most interesting event foodwise. I picked the dinner with vegas chef Julian Serrano, hosted by Pat Riley of Miami Heat and Clicquot inc. because as a New Yorker, my opportunities to experience a Vegas chef is limited, and I love basket ball.

The dinner begin with a tour of the Heat locker rooms by Pat Riley. This is followed by four amuses paired with krug Grande Curvee: Salmon with Tropical Fruit Salsa, Seared Sea Scallop with Caviar, a mushroom tarlett and candied baked apple with Stilton cheese and walnuts. The salmon was the most interesting of the four, and the candied baked apple was the tastiest, both are thrived on contrasting flavours. The mushroom tarlett and sea scallops were brilliantly executed, but on the bland side.

Main dinner menu started on a light note with a stone crab salad and green apple champgne vinaigrette paired with a '89 Krug vintage. The champagne had a medium bodied flavour that worked with the stone crab that shined with the clean crispiness of frisee and green apples. The second course was a cuminj dusted sea bass on top of a bed of bitter greens, served with '88 krug vintage. I don't particularly like the '88 vintage as it was too full bodied for my taste. But, the intense flavour of the cumin was nicely balanced with the bitter greens. This is not an inventive dish, but it was well concocted. I skipped the Lamb Roti and the Parmesan potatoes that followed, but not the Krug Rose that went with it. As a person who does not like pink champagne, even I had to admit that this is a lovely champagne that truly sparkled.

The grand finale of the dinner was the dessert which consisted of a vanilla cream panna cotta with a raspberry pear strudel, with this, the chef successfully takes you through a circle of sensations starting with a citrusy poached pear to a delicate cream pudding to a intense fruit pastry with a tart raspberry sauce. Each one element is fairly simple, but together they create a compexity that is rarely achieved.

The sub-zero dinners were sold at $300 a ticket, and the food I had was worth every penny.

[plax]

Thanks, Bond Girl, for the additional reports on the Friday & Saturday events. Maybe next year my budget will allow for one or more... but I doubt the chefs would flirt with me the way they did with you!

As far as any naivete in my report about coffee grinders or anything else, I apologize... I don't pretend to be an expert and hope I didn't make any other errors.

Neil

[Bond Girl]

Plax, don't you agree that whole "naked girl covered in chocolate sauce" is just the chespeat gimmick? can you believe the guy actually thinks he's creating "ART"?

[plax]

Yes, I did think the chocolate girl was a dumb trick-- and what's worse, for them, is that I didn't even pay attention to the restaurant's name, so all the trick did was draw attention to the girl, not to the restaurant itself.

I have to say, some of the food at the tasting was just horrible-- those cheese balls dipped in pepper went right into the trash after one nibble. I wish more restaurants had listed the menu on the table so you could know what you're eating-- and not waste time waiting for something you knew you didn't like.

Neil